The Yaoundé PhD Seminar

The Yaounde Seminar is taking place for the fifth time this summer! Preparations are already well under way, and we have received a record number of applications, from all over the world.

Although the seminar receives some financial support from our respective institutions, it is difficult to get funding for an event in Cameroon. We would like to make the Yaounde seminar as accessible as possible, but with our current budget it is not possible to either wave the (already reduced) participation fee for participants from developing countries, or offer travel grants. A higher number of participants puts pressure on our budget.

Without financial support, participation in the seminar is very difficult, in some cases impossible, for those who want to come. This is not only bad news for the individual philosopher, but also for the seminar: inclusion is crucial for achieving what we set out to do! With your help we can, while running a responsible budget:

- Waive participation fees for some of the participants from developing countries. - Offer travel grants to some participants from developing countries.

More about the Yaoundé PhD Seminar

The Yaoundé PhD Seminar - Theories of Justice is an international and summer school that has been put together in 2012 at the initiative of African and non-African PhD students with the aim of establishing a genuine and lasting North-South conversation, understanding and solidarity in academic philosophy.

The Yaoundé Seminar is a summer school in political philosophy, which takes place on the campus of the UCAC in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The aim of the summer school is to establish connections and dialogue between African philosopher and philosophers from Europe and North America, by getting PhD students from all over the world to discuss and argue. Such dialogue is almost completely absent in academic philosophy. We see this as a serious deficit. We think philosophy does better when it engages in dialogue with other philosophical traditions and with other perspectives on the world.

The theme of the fifth edition of the summer school focusses on our obligations to future generations, and how we should distribute the burdens of these obligations fairly in an unjust world. The Yaoundé PhD Seminar offers a platform which fosters mutual exchanges of diverse experience and thorough scientific expertise contributing thereby to the training of young researchers and to the building of their professional future. It aims to bridge the gap between the North and the South in higher education and research.

Previous summer schools dealt with questions of global justice, justice and gender, and agency of justice. We have had the pleasure of welcoming many renowned philosophers as lecturers in Yaoundé, like Alison Jaggar, Adam Swift, Fabien Eboussi, Ajume Wingo, Philippe Van Parijs.

We are proud and happy to announce that Katrin Flikschuh, Olatunji A. Oyeshile; Stephen Gardinar; Eszter Kollar, Dominic Roser and Fabien Eboussi will be this years lecturers and mentors.

Apart from informal discussions, the seminar comprises four main activities:

Key-note speakers lectures.

Postdoc Workshop

Junior Researchers Colloquium where PhD students present their project.

Two one-on-one tutorial meetings between PhD-students and lecturers.

Your donations will contribute to :

cover the transportation costs, accommodation and registration fees of selected African PhD students and young researchers who are often deprived of personal as well as institutional funding – guaranteeing therefore their equal access to the seminar